PS4 Neo Won’t Cut PS4’s Lifecycle Short, Says Shuhei Yoshida

PS4…is PS4?

PlayStation’s Shuhei Yoshida claims that the PS4’s life cycle will not be impacted by the release of the Playstation 4 Neo. One of the major questions raised about mid-cycle refreshes like the Neo and the Scorpio is whether these would impact console buying patterns by making consoles obsolete much sooner than before.

In response to a question posed to him by Gamesvelt.tv, Yoshida said that “PS4 is PS4.” He further stated–rather ambiguously that “The new high-end PS4 is still PS4.”

For PS4 owners put off by the Neo’s early appearance, this could be read both ways–Yoshida could be saying that, through feature parity in games (i.e. the Neo will not be able to do anything gameplayw-wise that the PS4 can’t), the Neo will somehow not cannibalise PS4 sales and render the older console obsolete.

More worryingly, the comment could be read as implying that the Neo is the PS4, and could completely replace it in Sony’s product stack with the original PS4 being rapidly phased out.

Yoshida also reacted to Microsoft’s Scorpio announcement during the interview, saying that he was “surprised.”